Thai Union Group, Government Discuss Labour Abuses in Seafood Sector

THAILAND - Thai Union Group (TUF) Executives have met with the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, General Prawit Wongsuwon, this week to discuss illegal labour issues in the Thai fishing industry.

In meeting with General Prawit Wongsuwon, the Thai Union Executives, led by Mr Kraisorn Chansiri, Chairman, Mr Thiraphong Chansiri, President and CEO and Mr Rittirong Boonmechote, President of global shrimp business, called on the Thai government to take significant steps to tackle the on-going labour problems in the seafood supply chain to protect human rights, punish those who are enslaving or trafficking workers and make known to the world of the government’s measures against the human crimes.

According to Mr Thiraphong Chansiri, President and CEO, Thai Union Group: “As a world’s leading seafood player, Thai Union is proactively addressing the issues beyond the industry itself to the national level in Thailand, as we can no longer tolerate what is happening in our home. We are committed in giving full support to the government in fighting the problems of human rights violations in the Thai seafood industry with a sense of urgency.

"We will continue to work on the issues very seriously in order to assure our business partners that the seafood products from Thailand are free from illegal labour practices”.

At the meeting the leaders discussed the need for relevant official authorities to ensure the harmonisation of actions across all bodies for effective and unified efforts in driving corrective actions against the labour problems in the fishing industry.

Thai Union executives also urged the government to appoint a national head of the mission to implement the counteractive measures.

The current government has already implemented different phases of actions against human trafficking and would make the suppression of human trafficking part of the national agenda on 3 April, 2015.